


On My Way Home

by doorstepdreams



Series: Missing Scenes [2]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Mention of Jack's overdose, pre-zimbits - Freeform, see summary for full warnings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-13
Updated: 2017-08-13
Packaged: 2018-12-15 00:33:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11794731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doorstepdreams/pseuds/doorstepdreams
Summary: for checkplsdude on tumblr who is having a really rough time right now and could use some distractionpre-zimbits slightly angsty fluff, sometime after they lose the playoffs - roughly Jack’s POV - the alternating of Bitty’s nicknames and real name is intentional and not just sloppy writing :)





	On My Way Home

**Author's Note:**

> \- mentions of a near-panic attack (very very brief)  
> \- mention of Jack’s OD (very brief)  
> \- a very sexist/phobic remark from Jack but it's only said out loud because he knows he needs to fully address and correct it (thanks, Shits) and basically a cover for Jack not yet downloading the Emotions™ upgrade to his software  
> \- please don’t read though if you sense that might be upsetting!

 

Jack awakes to a scream, or at least the ghost of a scream. His eyes fly open to take in where he’s slumped on a chair in the living room, computer screen on his lap gone black and the room dark with the blinds drawn shut.

Another scream, not heard through a haze of sleep, has Jack flinging his laptop onto the coffee table and rushing to the front doorway with lightning speed. Bittle. Outside. Screaming.

He stumbles to a halt in the blinding sunlight, blinking furiously to adjust his vision.

“Fuuuuck, Jack, what’s the dilly dally?” Shitty’s voice comes from the Haus steps and Jack can just about make out his startled and prone, half-naked form. “Dilly dally? No. Commotion? No…”

Jack zones out Shitty’s burbling and finds his breathing again at the sight of Bittle being shoved by Ransom and Holster into the tree in their front yard. He’s yelping more than screaming now and thank God. Thank God. Jack sinks onto the step one up from Shits and rests his elbows on his knees, trying to slow his heart rate.

“Dude, the fuck happened? You have a nightmare?” Shitty’s blotchy eyes are vague but earnest, reaching out a hand not holding the joint to pat Jack’s bare knee where his shorts have ridden up.

“Yeah, man, I mean no, I’m just…” Jack wipes a hand over his face and sighs. “Wanna hear something really offensive?” It’s a code phrase they use between just the two of them. He’s never this unguarded with anyone but Shits.

Shitty stretches out like a cat wearing cut-off shorts. “Fuckin-A I would!”

Jack looks pointedly over at where Bits is still wedged in the tree, striped tank top covered in leaves and his absurd shorts invisible where he’s bent at the waist, looking like he’s not wearing any at all. One of his flip-flops is on and the other is wedged down the ass-side of Ransom’s shorts.

“It’s like having a little girl around.”

Shitty’s eyes follow Jack’s to Bitty, then widen and he whistles low. “Duuuuuuuuude!” he whispers in awe of just how little he was prepared for the offensiveness.

Jack squints his eyes once and tries to trace back his thinking, the way his therapist had taught him to do when his brain supplied him with an unexpectedly terrible thought. (“Social conditioning, Jack. You can undo it.”)

“No, it’s like,” he says with deliberation, “it’s  _not_  like a girl. Obviously I don’t think of Bittle as a girl.” He notices Shitty’s posture loosen a bit once he’s said this. “But also because I never panic about Lardo like this. Or any girl. I don’t think girls are weak. It’s more like Bittle is a target and everywhere he goes someone wants to hurt him. Like he’s just constantly about to get hurt or…” Jack doesn’t say ‘killed’ because that would be indulging his anxiety to a dangerous degree.

Shitty’s expression softens into understanding. “You mean the way you see a little kid and you know all the scary, horrible shit that they don’t know yet?”

Jack nods slightly, now watching Ransom and Holster tuck leaves into Bitty’s hair and singing some ridiculous medieval-type song at him while he conducts them from the tree.

Shitty takes a drag from the joint and speaks without breathing. “Bits isn’t a little kid,” he breathes out slow and deep, “but his innocence despite knowing the world is full of fuck and shit makes him seem even more special and you want to protect him even more?”

Jack blinks. Slowly he turns one of his arms over and points directly at Shitty’s face. Shitty writhes in delight.

“I know, I’m a poet and a scholar. Anytime you need me to de-asshole your masculine thinking, man.” He sits up only to slump against Jack’s step. “Is that Enya? How do they know Enya lyrics?”

Ransom and Holster have gained passion in their singing and are making no attempt to help Bitty back down from the tree. Each time he tries to escape they push him back in.

“Git!” Bitty yells, joyful but very firmly. “Go on and git!”

This earns him his release but only because Ransom and Holster have doubled over laughing. They start playfully shoving at each other’s shoulders shouting “gyeeeiiit!” in ridiculous twangy voices while Bitty wriggles and finally falls out of the tree.

“Look what you guys have done to him,” Jack chides, extending his arm and making a beckoning motion with his hand. Bitty literally skips over to the steps and lets Jack pull leaves and wipe dirt from his clothes. His chest is rising and falling like a bellows with giddy energy but he stays still. “Completely covered in it,” Jack says in a grumble. The guys all hear the amusement in his voice as he swipes off patches of dirt stuck to where Bits is sweaty.

“Oh hey, you missed a spot!” Shitty reaches over with one hand to wipe imaginary dirt from Bitty’s ass, who rolls his eyes but is still glowing and smiling. Ransom and Holster both hoot and laugh from where they’ve reclined on the lawn chairs, egging Shitty on. Jack smacks his hand and tugs Bitty to stand closer between his legs with a comical look of disapproval at the shenanigans.

“Ey Shits, you got any more of that blunt left?” Holster bellows.

“Ey Shits can you even fucking walk, bro?” Ransom chimes in, mimicking Holster’s voice.

Shitty lets himself fall bodily onto the bottom step with a thud and attempts to rise into a dignified pose, ruined slightly by the wide berth he cuts across the lawn before finally arriving at his destination. He makes a grand gesture of placing the joint in Holster’s fingers before collapsing in Ransom’s lap.

Jack is so wrapped up in watching Bitty’s eyes squint shut as he laughs that he doesn’t register his hands still holding him lightly by the hips between his own spread legs. He doesn’t attempt to move them when he does. This is the type of moment Jack’s mind had clung to when his body felt cut off from the rest of him, lying cold and limp in a hospital bed. The feeling of innocent joy, warm sunshine, affection and belonging. Rare but crucial moments from his childhood and teens that he could summon up in perfect clarity even through the haze of the drugs. A something sweet in particular that boys like him were not supposed to experience after childhood. He knows to recognise and hold onto those moments even more now. This is the feeling that reminded Jack of all the sensations of Life. Here with his friends on a perfect early summer day, the grass grown long, laughter singing in the air like a breeze…and Bittle, who feels like a ray of sunshine caught between Jack’s two hands. Whose light never seems to age or dim no matter what happens to him. It’s no wonder that Jack had so viciously envied him that before finally accepting a share of it into his own life.

“You okay, hon?” Bits’ expression is concerned as he comes back into focus.

Jack attempts a smile and hopes his deep happiness is evident behind it. “Yeah, just got lost for a bit.” He pats Bitty’s side reassuringly, not knowing how to break the spell that’s come over him.

Then Bitty’s soft tan arms are looping over his shoulders, one smooth cheek pressed against Jack’s neck. It’s a sweet if hesitant little gesture, and Jack can feel a quick heartbeat against him for the moment it lasts. Bitty pulls back, barely looking into his face and Jack longs for the kind of easy, lingering embrace he sees Bits share with the other guys.

“Thanks, bud,” he says low and more meaningful than he intended. He ruffles Bitty’s hair with one hand and wipes at a streak of earth at the top of his cheek. “Hey, you’ll let one of us know if we ever get too rough with you, right?”

This earns him a glowing smile, the little cluster of Bitty’s slightly crooked bottom teeth showing. “Of course I will, Jack! You guys never roughhouse with me as bad as you do with each other, lord. I think I get it pretty easy.”

Jack’s brain has just begun to commandeer his hands into tugging Bittle into his lap without fully knowing why when Lardo waddles through the front doorway, balancing the biggest roll of canvas known to man alongside her giant satchel and computer bag.

“Jack…dude…little help?” she grunts out and Bitty pulls out of Jack’s grasp to let him up.

Jack shoulders the canvas like it’s an empty rucksack, remembering he’d offered to help her transport materials. He looks back down at Bitty, putting on his best stern captain face.

“Bittle! Shower. Class.”

A little thrill passes over BItty’s face before he scrambles up the steps and through the door.

Jack notes the smear of dirt under the hem of his shorts as he goes, idly regretting not seeing it before to wipe it off.

**Author's Note:**

> [on tumblr](https://jack-manpain-zimmermann.tumblr.com/post/164148569090/on-my-way-home)


End file.
